Lowering the Legal Minimum Drinking Age

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The issue of underage drinking has become a major problem, especially on college campuses. But, underage drinking is not purely the root of all accidents related to alcohol. The real problem lies within the unsafe underage drinking habits amongst youth. There are ways that these alcohol-related accidents can be avoided. Several organizations have been created that are targeting a change in the legal drinking age laws. One key way to lower the risk of unsafe drinking is to lower the minimum legal drinking age from twenty-one to eighteen.
The minimum legal drinking age was not always twenty-one; it has fluctuated between twenty-one and eighteen over the past few decades. In the article, “Underage Drinking and the Drinking Age” by Carla T. Main, the issues of voting age during the Vietnam War are discussed. Furthermore, she speaks about how the change of the legal voting age is linked to the change of the minimum legal drinking age. During the Vietnam War, lowering the voting age to eighteen became an issue. Many felt as though they should be trusted to vote if they were trusted to fight for their country (Main 35). Along with this issue came the issue of lowering the minimum legal drinking age as well. Americans began to realize that as eighteen year olds, citizens were given many rights, and those should include voting and drinking. At eighteen, rights include serving the United State military, the ability to get married, and being able to legal sign contracts on your own. After much attention, the voting age was changed (Main 35). In the article, “The Drinking Game”, Marshall Poe discusses the change of the voting age during the Vietnam War. “The needed three-fourths of the states approved the 26th amendment in under five month...
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...irms that the AlcoholEdu program is yielding promising results [. ] students who completed the program had a 50% reduction in negative academic and personal consequences related to drinking” (Gilroy 53). The AlcoholEdu program, and programs similar to them, can significantly improve the occurrence of unsafe underage drinking on college campuses.
In all, lowering the minimum legal drink age would have positive effects on alcohol-related incidents, especially amongst college students. The risks that unsafe drinking creates can and should be avoided by any means possible. As many college campus officials have already begun taking steps toward making a change, it is crucial that everyone takes part in the movement as well. The relationship that teenagers have with unsafe drinking can be avoided if the proper changes are made to the drinking laws in the United States.

looking at the drinking age in many nations, a trend of relatively young minimum legal drinking ages (MLDA) can be seen around the world. As it stands, all of America’s 50 states employ a MLDA of 21 making America one of only seven countries in the world to have a drinking age set at 21; the oldest age set as the minimum legal drinking age in the world. Where many of our friends in Europe are happily drinking away at 18, many here in America are left wondering why we don’t employ the same age requirement

Lowering the Legal Drinking Age From 21 to 18
In the United States the legal drinking age, with a few exceptions, is 21; this should be changed from 21 to the age of 18. This would help high schoolers and college students who generally commit the act of underage drinking anyways to avoid long lasting legal repercussions. This would also remove the excitement that many underage drinkers feel since for many, it would now be legal. This would help to lessen temptation and encourage today’s youth

All 50 states have set the minimum legal drinking age to 21, although some states have made exceptions. Raising the drinking age to 21 in order to avoid teenage drinking has instead created excessive drinking in private places, therefore producing more danger (“Minimum”). The national drinking age was raised from 18 to 21 in 1984; it was not until 1988 that all 50 states had a minimum legal drinking age of 21 (Wechsler and Nelson 986). Drinking underage is permitted in certain circumstances in 45

opposed to lowering the minimum legal drinking age. Choose Responsibility, a group founded by John McCardell, proposes that upon completion of a 40 hour course to educate young people about alcohol, 18, 19, and 20 year old people should be licensed to drink. The Amethyst Initiative, part of Choose Responsibility, is a petition to Congress to rethink the minimum legal drinking age. Several college leaders have signed this petition in the belief that lowering the minimum legal drinking age will reduce

Legal drinking age is a controversial topic all over the world. In many countries the legal age to drink alcohol is 18 or lower. The United States is one of the only countries that says a person must be 21 before they are allowed to drink. Why is the U.S. Drinking age so much higher than other countries? Some people believe that the age should be lowered to 18, arguing that at the age of 18, a United States citizen is a legal adult and allowed to make their own decisions. If a mature teenager wants

“Should the drinking age be lowered?” has been debating for years. The history of the minimum legal age to drink alcohol can be traced all the way back to the end of Prohibition in 1933. Lawmakers at that time made the youngest age to consume alcohol to be 21. However, it had changed over the years. Between 1970 and 1975, 29 states lowered the minimum legal drinking age to either 18, 19 or 20. It was due to the lowered required voting age from 21 to 18. When many scientific studies showed that the

turns eighteen they become a legal adult. With becoming an adult comes many new responsibilities, a person can now vote for the next elected representatives, they can live on their own and pay their own bills; it’s a brand new world for young adults. As a college student, alcohol is a very common occurrence. The minimum legal age to drink in the United States in twenty-one and it has always caused a continuing controversy. Alcohol is everywhere as well as underage drinking and as a college student that

the minimum legal drinking age in the United States or not. Many Americans forbid the idea of legalizing the drinking age so that it would be profitable to the businesses. Likewise, there have been many advantages and disadvantages of why should the government allow young adults drink under the age of 21. To prevent this issue, many Americans have provided reasoning that will support the idea of keeping the minimum legal drinking age where it is now. The government should maintain the minimum legal

century, researchers and doctors studied carefully the effects of drinking alcohol among different age classes. The category that even continuing as an important subject to discuss is the minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) from 18 to 21. The minimum legal drinking age in the United States is 21. After the cancelation of the alcohol prohibition on December, 5, 1933 by the 21st amendment, each state sat their Minimum Legal Drinking Age of 21, but during the Vietnam War the situation change and it required

Should the Minimum Legal Drinking Age of 21 be lowered to the age of 18? After the legal voting age was lowered from 21 to 18 in 1971, 30 US states ended up lowering their MLDA to 18, 19, or 20. When the states started implementing the Minimum Legal Drinking Age, they saved approximately 20,000 lives. They also decreased the number of alcohol-related youth fatalities among drivers by 63 percent since 1982. By 1982, only 14 US states had the MLDA of 21. In 1984, all of the states that have recently